Tuesday, November 04, 2008

So here we are, the day we had begun to think would never come. As an old native-born Californian would say, it’s a most unusual day.

The timing of Mrs Dunham’s death was uncanny. I hope it’s true that she was alert enough to talk to him the week before. Studs Terkel's obituary in the Telegraph yesterday said that he had been looking forward to seeing Obama elected. If the dead care for such things, he and Mrs Dunham will have front-row seats on some cloud this evening.

I am sorry my sister couldn’t have stayed for tonight’s experience. She’ll be happier at Rachel’s house, however, because Rachel can get CNN and my sister won’t believe whatever happens, until she sees it on CNN.

Like you, Susan, I’m worried about the American capacity to trip over shoelaces, when it comes to the technology of voting. The country that invented Bill Gates.

Chronic Knitting Syndrome has a good post today, with some choice links, on the subject of how we are going to manage the rest of our lives with the interest of this extraordinary election suddenly snatched from us.

Knitting

I’m now doing row 15 of the 10th repeat of the Princess centre – it’s like Sheherazade – I get to the end of a row, and need to start the next one. And then the next night, I’ve got to finish it, and…

I really am determined to stop. I got out the notes for Alexander’s Calcutta Cup ’06 sweater yesterday, thinking it might be nice to use the same allover stitch pattern for his wife’s sweater – and find that I didn’t make a note of it. It’s in one of my books, needless to say. I am stunned at such stupidity. At the time, one believes one can never forget. I flipped through some Sheila McGregor, hoping the pattern would leap up off the page at me, but it didn’t.

The notes don’t even say which direction the sleeves were knit in, or (if bottom-up, as I believe they were) how attached. The blog will answer that question, at least. I’d better go back and have a look. The basic pattern was generated from the Sweater Wizard. The sleeves are set in.

Regardless of today's outcome, I've got a new sweater to knit on and expect I'll weather any storm (even if it's from Canada). I expect we'll go watch election returns with the neighbours, since we get horrible TV reception ourselves.

I'm very nervous about the voting today. I was the 550th voter in my precinct at 8:45 am after standing in line for an hour and a half.thank goodness I had knitting with me.I've finally had to start keeping a knitting diary since I can not remember from one sleeve to the second one what modifications I made.

It's not a question of believing the results--I'm sure the BBC is accurate--it's a question of hearing the CNN commentators I have been listening to for over a year comment on this particular night. Election night won't be the same without Donna Brazile and Paul Begala.

I stood in a small line for about 45 minutes and watched three college students get turned away from the polls because they had out of state IDs, which are not accepted in Ohio.

I accosted one girl and told her to march over to the Burser's office to get a proof of residency (the college is giving them out) and to come back and vote. She looked so confused- but I got her handed off to some people from the school who were at the polls, who whisked her away to go take care of the paperwork.

What struck me about this all (having voted in North Carolina and California before) is how badly the polls are run. Only one person was checking names-- in North Carolina when I voted they had the last names broken down alphabetically and five pollworkers just checking names. No wonder Ohio is always a mess.

I feel like my whole body is crossed, not only two fingers, awaiting the results.I was trying to guess how much sleep your nephew working on the Obama campaign has had in the past week ... not much likely.I sent in my absentee Washington ballot about two weeks back.Lisa in Toronto

Well, it's after midnight outside DC - people dancing in Lafayette Park downtown. I've never seen such a reaction to an election. I only stood in line for 5 minutes, although I'm told the early morning line was an hour as people voted before work. The voter turnout was maybe twice what it usually is, and the whole election was surreal. Unendurably long, and surreal.

you should have seen the town of Oberlin. Kids dancing in Wilder Bowl and Tappan Square- all the old radicals out there cheering and dancing with them. The fireworks and screaming and sheer jubilation. I think even ol' Charles Finney might be smiling in his grave.

I've just duplicated your work by scouring through your older blog entries relating to Alexander's sweater.

Sept 22, 2006: The allover pattern was on the same page in Odham's Encyclopedia as Norbury's comment about color sequences not following the pattern (apparently his own idea, not traditional).

Sept 25, 2006: the stitch pattern was the same one a Famous Designer used with Norbury's varying color pattern idea.

March 3, 2007: The sleeves were knitted up from the cuffs and joined at the raglan, with a fairly wide underarm left open to be grafted later.

Dec. 7, 2007: One stitch per raglan line was left always in the dark background color to be used for decreasing.

Dec. 17, 2006 one stitch was left in the center to become the seam stitch at the sleeve. (Also confusing to me.)

March 9-13, 2007: discussions of the raglan shaping and neck shaping, with photographs.

Non-knit: Now I'm worried for a different reason: the last time I voted /for/ rather than /against/, I was sadly disappointed in the actual performance of the president once he was in office. I'm still relieved - despite the landslide, it's still not a 100% mandate. And I'm sure that California will regret their decision.